The ADA and City Governments: Common Problems

Issue: Curb Ramps

Common Problem:

City governments often do not provide necessary curb ramps to ensure that people with disabilities can travel throughout the city in a safe and convenient manner.

Result:

Without the required curb ramps, sidewalk travel in urban areas is dangerous, difficult, and in some cases impossible for people who use wheelchairs, scooters, and other mobility aids. Curb ramps allow people with mobility impairments to gain access to the sidewalks and to pass through center islands in streets. Otherwise, these individuals are forced to travel in streets and roadways and are put in danger or are prevented from reaching their destination.

Requirement:

When streets and roads are newly built or altered, they must have ramps wherever there are curbs or other barriers to entry from a pedestrian walkway. Likewise, when new sidewalks or walkways are built or altered, they must contain curb ramps or sloped areas wherever they intersect with streets or roads. While resurfacing a street or sidewalk is considered an alteration for these purposes, filling in potholes alone will not trigger the alterations requirements. At existing roads and sidewalks that have not been altered, however, city governments may choose to construct curb ramps at every point where a pedestrian walkway intersects a curb, but they are not necessarily required to do so. Under program access, alternative routes to buildings that make use of existing curb ramps may be acceptable where people with disabilities must only travel a marginally longer route.

Curb ramps provide basic access at intersections and pedestrian crossings.

One way to ensure the proper integration of curb ramps throughout a city is to set a series of milestones for curb ramp compliance in the city’s transition plan. Milestones are progress dates for meeting curb ramp compliance throughout the municipality. Milestones should occur on a regular basis throughout the course of the transition plan and must reflect a priority to walkways serving government buildings and facilities, bus stops and other transportation services, places of public accommodation, and business districts, followed by walkways serving residential areas. It also may be appropriate for a city government to establish an ongoing procedure for installing curb ramps upon request in both residential and nonresidential areas frequented by individuals with disabilities. 28 C.F.R. §§ 35.150(d)(2); 35.151(e). In setting milestones and in implementing a curb cut transition plan for existing sidewalks, the actual number of curb cuts installed in any given year may be limited by the fundamental alteration and undue burden limitations.